According to the provisional foreign trade statistics compiled by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) and the Turkish Undersecretariat of Customs, in December last year Turkey’s foreign trade deficit decreased by three percent to $4.53 billion compared to December 2019. In 2020, Turkey’s foreign trade deficit rose by 69.1 percent year on year to $49.91 billion.
In December, Turkey’s iron and steel exports ranked third among the country’s products with the highest export value, totaling $1.01 billion, increasing by 36.6 percent year on year. Meanwhile, in the given month the value of exports of articles of iron or steel, which ranked eighth among the products with the highest export value, rose by 2.8 percent year on year, amounting to $627.74 million.
In 2020, Turkey’s iron and steel export value was down by 12 percent to $8.81 billion, while the value of its exports of articles of iron or steel decreased by five percent to $6.35 billion, both year on year.